


Do Not Meddle Those in Mourning

by HiraKiaShi



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Claude is overzealous in studying, Clauditri but it’s sad, Cyril is just a wallflower for this relationship at this point, M/M, Spoilers, cyril-centric, fear the deer, lorenz is a badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 06:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20523458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiraKiaShi/pseuds/HiraKiaShi
Summary: The battle of the Eagle and Lion was a bloody one. Cyril can only hold off enemies from finishing his fallen comrades.Later, while everyone licks their wounds and slowly heals, Claude needs to heal his mind more than his body.





	Do Not Meddle Those in Mourning

**Author's Note:**

> So a prequel of The Importance of Trust. It’s just more of that Cyril-centric fic I’m working on and this became too on its own to be part of it.

Lorenz lept off his horse, stumbling down to his knees. It didn’t matter, Raphael was on the ground anyways. The soft grass around the barbarian was darkened with blood.   
There was plenty of that all over the battle field. Their strategy failed, and now they suffered the consequences. Half of the army was holding off Dimitri’s resistance, and the other half was struggling against Hubert and his forces.

He cast heal, and watched the deep wound close slowly. Flesh being forced to mend itself back together. The clothes stayed torn, He was no miracle worker. The excessive bleeding slowed, but didn’t stop.  
Raphael bit his lip, trying to get up, to keep fighting. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and Lorenz had to push him down.   
“You buffoon! Stay down! You’ll only make it worse!”

Cyril leapt off his Wyvern, having followed behind the Dark Knight into the trees. The trees were too tight together to be able to fight in flight here. Soldiers had chased after them. No man on the opposing army is to be left alive.   
He held off whatever enemy soldiers followed them to the covering of trees as Lorenz mended the flesh.   
“Where- Marianne!” Raphael cried out, Lorenz pushed him down again.   
“She’s fine!! She’s with Hilda! You’re the only one you need to worry about!” 

Another strangled cry sent a jolt of fear through Cyril’s spine. Raphael was known to let out terrifying battle roars while fighting, one’s that even the most powerful general hesitated at.   
Now, hearing him cry in agony, in pain that is one wrong move away from killing him, it felt wrong, and even more terrifying.

Another soldier fell to Cyril’s sword, and he wondered how long until they retreated. Byleth was after Dimitri, in hopes to appease the furious man, while Claude charged to Edelgard. With soldiers still fighting, he worried if they fell.

No, they couldn’t have..

Cyril let his hard down, the sense of hopelessness giving his opponent the opportunity to his him. He felt a steel gauntlet hit his shoulder, and he fell back from the force.  
He saw behind him, many more soldiers waiting to overrun them.   
A barbarian stood above him, grinning devilishly down at him as he held his shoulder. Warm blood seeping into the fabric of his armor.

He held his hands up, his sword fallen from his grip, and not enough time to grab it.   
A bright spell surrounded the soldier and those behind him, and the ground broke beneath him. A blinding light, and the soldier was blown back into a tree, dead. Cyril was blasted back from the spell. He was dazed, and had to recollect himself.  
Alive? Breathing  
Sight? Barely  
Move? Slowly

He pulled himself up from where he landed. Behind him, where he once was, the ground was uneven and jagged.  
He looked back to who casted the spell. Lorenz was full height now, standing with his arms outstretched as the spell faded from his body. He looked terrifying. The Dark Knight armor is intimidating. With sharp edges and metal dark as night. He had spells that were up with Lysethia’s own prowess. So, despite his heavy pants and sagging shoulders, Cyril felt his spine prickle in fear.   
Whatever that spell was, it took a toll on Lorenz.

Thysirus flowed brightly in his hand, and faded as it went away. Lorenz swayed, before slowly kneeling again. He held a hand to his temple, before beginning to mend Raphael’s wound once more.   
Raphael must have felt the same way, because he was quiet now, only grunting when the pain was too much to hold in.   
Cyril pulled himself up, and rubbed the last of his healing salve over his shoulder. It was his left shoulder, he can ignore the dull throbbing. 

Lorenz looked over Raphael again, before getting up.  
“He’s stable... Raphael, please stay here.. I need.. I have to go help-“   
“Woah woah!”   
Lorenz had stood, but swayed once more, Cyril caught him and steadied him.  
“That spell took everything out of you. Stay here. Running off to get you killed is a fool’s act and you know it.”   
“But Claude-“   
“Claude will be fine. I’ll go back out there. I promise I’ll help him.”   
“You’re hurt too.”

Cyril looked at his shoulder. The vunerarity only did so much, but he couldn’t feel it much anyways. Not since the fall of the monastery, his left arm was always a dull feeling when he touched it.   
Being mawed by a beast seemed to do that.  
“I’ll be fine. Stay here, please.” 

He took off with ease, and sought out Claude.  
The battlefield was still raging, and Cyril wondered if it would ever end. The ballista where Benedetta was was in flames, lysethia was healing Seteth and ignatz was sending off a bloodied Hubert.   
Claude was nowhere.   
He travelled farther down, and finally spotted him. Crossing axes with a tired Edelgard.

The empress was not only tired, still, Cyril could only watch as Claude’s Wyvern fell, the lord jumping off it to stumble to the ground.   
“CLAUDE-“   
He watched, as Claude looked up, Eldelgard’s axe poised over his head.  
He didn’t have time! His promise to Lorenz, Claude couldn’t die here!

And Dimitri must have thought so too.   
The boar came running, bloodied and savage like, he barreled into the empress.  
“You’ll pay for what you did!!”

With the two lords distracted, Cyril jerked Claude to his feet.  
“Dimitri-“  
“We need to get out of here.”   
“No wait Dimitri!”

Edelgard was retreating, and the prince ignored Claude’s cries as he chased after her. They ran well out of sight, and Claude was forcibly held back by Cyril.  
“No! No they’re my friends! I can’t let them- let go!!”

Claude struggles, but he was weak, and eventually allowed himself to slump against Cyril.   
“My friend. My Dimitri. Edelgard she didn’t..” 

It wasn’t until Hilda returned that they would know what happened. And Cyril wasn’t there for Claude’s reaction, but the professor asked Cyril to go after their lord. 

Byleth was not Lady Rhea, nor was she the archbishop. Not to Cyril at least.   
Still, he obeyed her as he would Rhea, because that is what she would have asked him to do. So, after the battle on the planes, when Byleth told him to follow Claude after talking with Hilda, Cyril did so.   
She told him look on Claude’s face when Hilda told them of Dimitri’s fall. The pain that struck across his face before he collected himself into shock.   
He retreated the conversation shortly after, and Cyril followed.   
———  
“Claude-“   
“Please don’t stop me.”  
“Claude you know-“  
“He’s still alive! He has to be.” 

Claude marches onward, where Edelgard retreated and Dimitri had followed her.   
Dimitri didn’t ever respond to him. After five years, he was so relived to see Dimitri alive. But..  
The look in his eyes, he knew Dimitri, even after five years, but he found no familiarity in him. 

Cyril could only follow him half heartedly, trying to pull him back to the rest of the group.   
“You’re chasing no more than a dead man. Even if he is alive..”  
“He was alive for five years!! Five years ago I was told he was killed.. and I believed it! I will not be tricked by him again! I have questions and he has a duty to answer them-“  
“You’re saying Hilda lies?”   
“I’m saying she could have been tricked like the rest of us.”

Dimitri was mad. Felix warned them he had lost his sanity. He was no more than a mad boar sent to kill.   
Still, Claude remembers the tenderness of Dimitri, how he was so loving to those around him, despite a dark past. He may have not been fully right, but he cared about what mattered most.

He saw the blue cloak, and soldiers retreating. Lances sticking out of his back like an enraged bull in a fight.   
Cyril grabbed the lord one last time.   
“Claude, there is nothing for you here.”  
Claude looked at the hand on him, then to Cyril, and back to the fallen king. He began to pull away from the grasp, until they heard the rustling of another approaching. They quickly took cover, the last thing either of them could do was fight. 

“My lord-“   
It was Dedue, and they watched from behind the shrubbery as dedue found Dimitri.   
He stared at a moment, as of waiting for Dimitri to respond. Slowly, reality settled in him.  
“No... no no..”   
the man sunk to his knees, and pulled the arrows and spears from his lord’s back one by one with vain desperation.  
There was no response. Dimitri could no longer feel the steel in his back, nor the blood that came from him. 

Claude stared at the dead body, blonde hair thrashed and dirty. His eyes were open, and Claude felt something disgusting rise in him.   
They were dead.. but.. they looked the exact same when he saw Dimitri save him.   
How long had Dimitri lost his humanity?

Dedue stood over him in a solemn silence, but Cyril saw the tears coming from those brown eyes like a river.   
“Leave him be,” Cyril tried again with a whisper. This time, Claude allowed himself to be pulled away from the dead prince. Cyril pulled him away from the scene slowly.   
“It isn’t good to meddle with the mourning. He won’t listen to enemies, even if he isn’t an enemy of us.”

“He wasn’t meant to die like this,” the lord spoke in an deadpan voice, emotion gone.

“None of us are.”   
“He promised.. he promised.. he said he would..”   
Cyril never saw Claude cry before, and it gave him the same feeling when Raphael was dying. Claude is not meant to cry. Not over some promise that Dimitri made him five years ago.   
...Did Claude know Dimitri survived? Or was there a promise before he left the monastery?   
Still, whatever Dimitri promised him, Cyril hopes that the boar prince would never Rest In Peace for it. That he could see Claude cry out his name, and burn at every tear his lord shed for him.

Claude walked in silence, and did not speak til hours later. His smile was back, and his serious planning was steel.   
Still, Cyril saw the redness in his eyes. He saw how the smile had too much teeth, and too much winking even for Claude. The way he rubbed his eyes, and the way he pinched at his neck to remind himself to wake up. 

He didn’t comment on it, following his own advice.   
Never meddle with those in mourning. 

————

After the battle, those with the most grievous were tended to first. Raphael and shortly after, Lorenz. That intimidating armor wasn’t impregnable, he had multiple stab wounds, broken ribs, and a fractured leg. Cyril assumes the leg was from the fall off his horse, but he wasn’t sure.   
He healed slowly, and Cyril knew it had to do with that spell. Lysethia told him about the spell, and how spells worked in general.   
He didn’t understand most of it, but he could understand that the bigger the spell, the more it tears you apart to create it.   
Lorenz was lucky. 

Still, he saw Lorenz walk into the library late at night, the man’s body still bandaged and sometimes still bleeding. Nurses were strictly telling him to take it easy, but he couldn’t seem to stay in one place for long.  
Eventually, Cyril saw a pattern.  
Lorenz would always go in the library, where Claude would be mulling over texts. 

Cyril would watch him talk with Claude, advising him in strategies.   
Before, Cyril was annoyed. Lorenz was a hard worker, and Claude was allowing him to overwork himself.   
But he noticed how Lorenz would skillfully turn Tactics to therapy. How, once Lorenz would finally crack a question, Claude’s shoulders would slump, and his eyes would finally stop glimmering with a happy facade. 

Claude was finally coming out of the rut he was in. Slowly, but surely. Eventually, Lorenz no longer had to sneak around from the nurses, and Claude wouldn’t be found early morning mulling away at paperwork and intel as often. Still, they talked plenty now.   
“What did he promise you?”  
“Dimitri? Nothing.”   
“You can’t lie to me Claude.” 

The man hummed. Not anymore, it seemed. Claude leaned back, and looked out the window. It was mid morning, most were in the food hall for breakfast. He could see Cyril and a cautious Marianne flying on patrol.  
“Was it before or after he left the monastery?”  
“Before.. it was before he was presumed dead. He promised me that he would come back. That we would fix this together.. whatever happened back home..” 

“The massacre?”  
“He didn’t survive it.. maybe physically.. but mentally.. Lorenz.. Dimitri was gone..” 

Claude remembered those eyes, glancing at him fr a moment, with no recognition. It was like staring at a dead man. A ghost with unfinished business.   
He saved Claude, but not on purpose. 

Claude bowed his head, he was exhausted.   
“Let’s... lets get back to the planning..”   
“Claude...”  
A clean, pale hand touched his own still gloved one. Lorenz was always one to keep his hands spotless. Who knew how dirty his own were? 

“Overworking yourself is as bad as not doing any work Claude, a tired king is no better than a lazy one.” 

He sighed deeply, Lorenz was right. He always was when it came to such matters. 

“Sr’rry,” he mumbled, and allowed himself to be pulled from the books strewn about.   
“I’ll come back and clean this later. Let’s go to your dorm.”   
“Right..”

Seeing the lord walking half awake, being lectured his ear off while trying not to fall asleep while walking, Cyril could only admire it. Even though Lorenz babbled like no tomorrow, Claude seemed almost contented by the voice alone.   
Cyril watched them pass, Lorenz giving a soft nod and an awkward bow as they walked. 

Cyril watched them head down the halls, and felt an odd wave of pride in seeing their leader go get rest.   
Claude seemed uncaring and a man with ulterior motives before, but now that he was older, and taking advantage of the power he now held to do good.  
What he did for his comrades, what he sacrificed for them. What his dream was, Cyril knew he could follow Claude to whatever dawn he leads them to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Please let me know how you liked it!  
This is unbeta’d, so if you noticed any errors, don’t hesitate to tell me!


End file.
